Helping the Helpers Free Webinar

Helping the Helpers – Running effective telephone support through the involvement of volunteers

Wednesday 24 June 2020  |  11am-12pm

Volunteer Now is delighted to be partnering with Change Your Mind and Inspire to deliver this webinar.

WHO FOR?  The webinar is aimed at organisations that are supporting volunteers who are making or receiving calls with people who are vulnerable.

During COVID-19 many services have had to change their delivery methods or indeed new services have been developed.  These have included helplines, telephone befriending or check in and chat calls.  Volunteers have been instrumental in all of these services and organisations have had to deal with a variety of difficult issues arising from the calls.  Having the right policies and procedures in place as well as good systems for ensuring the emotional wellbeing of the volunteers is essential.  We are delighted to be partnering with Inspire to deliver this short webinar to explore 3 key themes:

1. Emotional support: supporting those who are giving and receiving advice, guidance and assistance.
2. Effectiveness: assessing the impact of dealing with specific issues through telephone support.
3. Ethical considerations: the importance of quality governance in administrative and clinical management (such as procedures/ policy documents, confidentiality, risk assessment, evaluation, training initiatives).

For each of these themes the emphasis will be to engage in ways to improve effectiveness of telephone support.  There will be time to share experiences and learn from each other with the aim of improving practice and the support we can provide to volunteers.

We would also like to explore with attendees the potential for a webinar with volunteers themselves to help them deal with challenging calls and look after themselves.

Please register your interest with Julie-ann.ashe@volunteernow.co.uk and joining information will be sent out the day before the event.  Numbers are limited but please express interest as we will run this again if there is demand.